Fantasy sports leagues and competitions are now a wide-spread amusement activity and a natural outgrowth of the increased presence and importance that athletic competitions have acquired in recent years. Fantasy leagues for a variety of sports are now available, especially via the Internet and sponsored by media sources, including ESPN, CBS, Yahoo! and other similar entities. In these fantasy leagues, a user may undertake several responsibilities, including that of owner, general manager and coach or manager. Each team or organization within a fantasy league includes a number of individuals that actually participate in the sports leagues upon which the fantasy leagues are based. Obviously, the fantasy league participants success or failure is intertwined with the success or failure of the individuals each participant selects for his or her fantasy league team.
A fantasy league and its participants are scheduled to compete so that the fantasy league season corresponds with the current athletic season for a particular sport. For example, at the moment of this application, most American football fantasy leagues were completed upon the completion of the National Football League (NFL) regular season for 2007. Similarly, a baseball fantasy league will utilize the players and statistics generated from the upcoming 2008 Major League Baseball (MLB) season. Likewise, professional basketball fantasy leagues are in the midst of their regular seasons corresponding with the current 2007-2008 National Basketball Association (NBA) regular season.
Current fantasy league models do not utilize historical information for determining performance and results of the participants' teams in a particular fantasy league. Thus, the current fantasy league models generally begin and conclude a fantasy league season approximately contemporaneous to the actual athletic season, and fantasy league amusement for that particular sport is delayed for several months until the next athletic season begins.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a fantasy league model by which the fantasy league and each one of the member's performance is based on historical statistics taken from previous seasons, as opposed to the contemporaneous season on which fantasy league models are based. To applicant's knowledge, there is no other fantasy league model utilizing such historical statistics, thereby permitting unorthodox and out-of-season fantasy league schedules, among several possibilities.